David Cronenberg's The brood

Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) notices that his daughter shows signs of abuse after her regular weekend visit with her mother, Nola (Samantha Eggar), who is otherwise in isolation under the care of radical therapist Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed). The doctor is noted for psychoplasmics, a therapy that sees patients manifest their emotional trauma physically for a lasting recovery. Investigating his wife and Raglan's controversial therapies in order to gain full custody of his daughter, Frank uncovers an increasingly violent and mysterious force that kills people who are trying to aid him. Meanwhile, Nola is making real breakthroughs but with heavy costs. Cronenberg's 1979 classic combines a family going through a divorce with the outer edges of envelope-pushing psychotherapy and the specter of familial abuse. The result is a horror film that touches on emotions and experiences strongly rooted in everyday experience. VERDICT This tautly realistic, expertly acted approach makes the experimental treatments plausible, the repression-spawned and murderous Brood credible, and the fright generated especially effective.-Douglas Rednour, Georgia State Univ. Libs., Atlanta © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.